We are soliciting essays for a volume that aims to contribute to aconsideration of the politics and aesthetics of transnationalism whichcurrently figure prominently in both literary and cultural studies. Withan avid reassertion of nationalism and national boundaries throughoutthe world post 9/11, coupled with the increase of debates regardingtransnationalism and cosmopolitanism in academic circles, the need forsuch studies becomes increasingly important. What is the nature oftransnationalism, and can it be differentiated from other ways ofimagining overarching networks such as globalization? Is it a way ofgiving allegiance to a global community that emphasizes detachment fromlocal cultures? Does it promote multiple attachments to more than onenation or community? Or is it, as its opponents suggest, an apoliticaland celebratory cosmopolitanism that champions consumerism and elitemobility? What role does transnationalism play within a globalizedparadigm that is often resisted through various nationalisms? What isthe relationship between the ongoing erosion of cultural boundaries orterritories of knowledge, traditionally marked by the nation-state, andthe function still played by the state as a political and militaryapparatus? These are some of the questions that we wish to explore inthis volume.=20

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We are interested in case studies ranging across sites from the Southernto the Northern hemisphere, and across the divide between East and West.We seek articles that explore the existence of more than one kind ofcosmopolitanism, and more than one kind of transnational connection,between the local and the global. By focusing on transnationalconnectivity and redrawing rigid disciplinary contexts, that are oftenbased in cold war geography, we want to draw attention to the differentways in which transnational practices are articulated in and acrossspecific locations and/or periods. In considering transnationalism asboth a form of politics, as well as an aesthetic, the essays hosted inthis volume will depict a specter haunting national imaginaries incomplicated and contradictory ways. The scope of this interdisciplinarycollection is broad: it aims to deal with various forms of literary andnon-literary texts, and to engage directly with urgent theoreticaldilemmas. It has two types of readers in mind: readers interested in howtransnational discourses have been articulated in specific contexts andcircumstances, and readers looking for an intervention into debates ontransnationalism that seeks to draw attention to its complex and pluralcharacter. =20